Saudi Women Drive on Anniversary of Campaign to End Ban

The driving ban highlights the disparity between the rights of men and women in the ultra-conservative kingdom, holder of the world’s second-largest oil reserves. Photographer: Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Aziza al-Yousef said she took a 15-minute drive in the Saudi capital today to mark the first
anniversary of a campaign to end the ban on women drivers in the
kingdom.

Al-Yousef, a 52-year-old computer science university
lecturer, said she encountered no problems driving in support of
a call by the My Right to Dignity campaign. Saudi Arabia follows
the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam, and religious police
formally known as the General Presidency for the Promotion of
Virtue and the Prevention of Vice ensure strict gender
segregation at public places such as restaurants and schools.

“What’s happening today is not a protest,” she said by
phone from Riyadh. “We want to remember the day and the
issue.”

The driving ban highlights the disparity between the rights
of men and women in ultra-conservative kingdom, holder of the
world’s second-largest oil reserves. Women have been granted the
right to vote and run in the 2015 municipal elections, yet they
were excluded from last year’s ballot and can’t travel or get an
education or job without male approval.

“Society will get used to seeing women behind the wheel,”
the My Right to Dignity campaign said yesterday in an e-mailed
statement. “We demand the protection of women drivers from any
legal sanctions, and we demand that authorities protect women
drivers in the street from any harassments they could face.”

Driving Necessity

Al-Yousef and about 100 other women across the kingdom
haven’t stopped driving since the campaign was started, she
said. On most occasions, it was out of necessity, she said,
citing examples such as a woman who took her son who was
suffering from an asthma attack to a hospital in the middle of
the night.

“We didn’t drive to the mall or a party; we drove when
there was a need and we couldn’t find a driver,” said al-Yousef, a member of My Right to Dignity campaign who said she
drove about 30-40 times last year.

Women activists started several campaigns for broader
rights last year, including the driving initiative. They were
inspired by the Arab revolts that led to the fall of leaders in
Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. One of their efforts, a
campaign called Baladi, partially succeeded with King Abdullah’s
decision to allow women to participate in the next elections.

Brief Detention

More than 50 women responded to the call to get behind the
wheel in June 2011, taking spins in their cars as authorities
largely turned a blind eye. Some continued to drive after the
one-day initiative, and a couple were briefly detained. One
woman was sentenced to 10 lashes by a court in Jeddah, a
decision that was later rescinded.

Mohammed al-Qahtani, who sat in the passenger seat last
year as his wife drove, said the couple won’t repeat the
experience because they were pulled over by a police car and he
was forced to sign a pledge saying he won’t let his wife drive
again.

“But I told my wife she should encourage her friends to do
so,” said al-Qahtani, a member of the Saudi Civil and Political
Rights Association.

The My Right to Dignity campaign called on women with
international driving licenses to repeat the turnout today, and
to record their trips as evidence. Those who don’t know how to
drive were urged to send a picture of themselves behind the
wheel of a car to the campaigners.

Male Supporters

The group also called on male supporters to take their
female relatives on car journeys, sending a video clip or a
picture of the event, and to teach them how to drive, “even
your mother.”

“Marking the anniversary is going to be symbolic but the
symbolism is important because it will be a reminder of the
urgent matters that need attention, and a sign of continuity,”
Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi historian, said in a phone interview on
June 27.

Before last year’s initiative, the previous public defiance
of the ban by a group of women was in November 1990, when U.S.
troops were massed in Saudi Arabia to prepare for the war that
would expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.